The NFL's Washington Redskins are suing the men and women who brought the case that canceled the team's federal trademark registrations in June.

Amanda Blackhorse, who is Navajo, was the lead plaintiff in the suit and spoke today from her home in Kayenta on the Navajo Nation.

"We thought they'd file an appeal, but they decided to file a suit against us," said Blackhorse, a 32-year-old social worker, mother and activist.

"They filed an hour ago. They're filing this to overturn the decision of the (Trademark Trial and Appeal Board). This is not just going to an appeals court. This is a full-on trial. We'll have to have our witnesses ready."

"We were expecting this," she added. "When they won on appeal last time, in the Harjo case, they won on a legal technicality. And they're not going to have the chance with us."

"If people wouldn't dare call a Native American a 'redskin' because they know it is offensive, how can an NFL football team have this name," Blackhorse went on to say in a statement. "We know that time is on our side for a change in the team's name, and we are confident we will win once again at this stage of the litigation."

Blackhorse and her fellow plaintiffs will have some surprises ready for court, said Jesse Witten, an attorney representing the plaintiffs for Washington, D.C.-based Drinker Biddle & Reath.

"We have been thinking about this stage of the case. We are prepared. And we are prepared with some surprises," Witten said in a call to USA Today.

Team management believes the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ignored both federal case law and the weight of the evidence.

"We look forward to having a federal court review this obviously flawed decision," Robert Raskopf, the team's trademark attorney, said in a statement.

The team said in a statement that "the appeal is in the form of a complaint, effectively starting the litigation anew, this time in a federal court before a federal judge, and not in the administrative agency that issued the recent split decision."

In June, the U.S. Patent Office's trademark board revoked six federal trademark registrations owned by the team, ruling that "Redskins" was disparaging to "a substantial composite" of Native Americans when the marks were granted between 1967 and 1990.

The team filed the appeal in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and asks the court to look at constitutional issues.

"By canceling valuable, decades-old registrations, the Board improperly penalized the Washington Redskins based on the content of the team's speech in violation of the First Amendment," the statement said, adding that "the team has been unfairly deprived of its valuable and long-held intellectual property rights in violation of the Fifth Amendment."

In a statement, Blackhorse went on to say: "Open any dictionary you want – Random House, Merriam-Webster, American Heritage – and you will find a usage note explaining that the term is a disparaging way to refer to Native Americans.

"The National Congress of American Indians, countless Native American tribes and individual Native Americans, have protested. President Obama, other political leaders, media figures and Americans of all backgrounds, beliefs and ages, have also spoken out that it is time for the team name to change.

The Change the Mascot Campaign, led by the National Congress of American Indians and the Oneida Indian Nation, issued a statement as well:

"The National Football League claims it has a no-tolerance policy when it comes to racism, but by continuing to fight a court battle defending its promotion of a dictionary-defined racial slur, the league makes clear it is a proud purveyor of bigotry against Native Americans."

In 1999, the trademark board canceled the Washington team's trademark registrations in a previous case, Harjo et al v. Pro-Football Inc., brought by Suzan Shown Harjo and six petitioners. The team won on appeal in part because a district court ruled that the plaintiffs had waited too long to file their suit.

This case, Blackhorse v. Pro Football Inc., used younger petitioners.

The Washington team retains its federal trademark rights pending appeal.